I requested that this thread be removed

El-Diablo wrote:

[qutoe]Let's not forget to blame Louisiana and New Orleans for their parts in not better preparing for a hurricane of this magnitude. It wasn't Bush who said "hey guys let's just make things strong enough for a category 3" It was a whole slew of people.

Please let's stop the senseless fingerpointing until this disaster has been sorted out.[/quote]

THAT WAS MY POINT! Everyone wants to blame one person when there is plenty of responsibility (or lack thereof) which can be distributed all around.

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I'm sorry I ever even started this!

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I forgive you.

Line from an article from a pentagon spokesman about the idea of a hurrican hitting New Orleans six weeks ago:
"The only worse thing would be a biological or nuclear attack on a city."

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Montana wrote:

I'm sorry I ever even started this!

Never be sorry for stating your views. We may have differing approaches, ideas and views but you are entitled to them and should feel free to express them.

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Setanta wrote:

fishin' wrote:
Sorry Montana but this is just silly. Every politician in the last 60 years has been warned about the possibility of this happeneing in N.O. If there are people to blame it's teh one's that allowed people to build below sea-level to begin with.

That's a pretty naïve statement. Le Sieur d'Iberville established a settlement on the lake in 1699, which he named after the French Ministre de Marine, Pontchartrain--the Navy was responsible for overseas colonies. In 1718, his younger brother, le Sieur de Bienville established the town in its present location because of the easy access to the lake, which was then the avenue for communications with the sea.

So, i guess you want to blame the French of three hundred years ago for not forseeing the possibility of such a disaster, eh?

How many building permits have the French issued in N.O. since the levee on the south side of Lake Pontchartrain was completed in 1955? Rolling Eyes

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Montana

Montana wrote:

I'm sorry I ever even started this!

Montana, dear, don't be sorry. Most of us are very angry and need to vent.

BBB

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Thank you. I wish I hadn't started this because I absolutely hate to argue with people, which is why you don't see much of me in the political forum.

This is a touchy subject for us all and I should have left it alone for my own sake.

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I agree that it's touchy. I think it's one reason that we have to be careful about "venting." A hurricane can't be blamed for being a hurricane, and while we all feel terrible about what's happened (and there are things that could have been done to prevent it, starting with not building below sea level in the first place as fishin' says), I don't think this particular brand of "venting" does much but direct our generalized sadness and frustration against each other.

I'm perfectly happy to point fingers when things become clearer, and consider it my civic duty even -- but the tone of A2K today has been distinctly unpleasant when I frankly would rather commisserate, hunt for facts, and do what little I can to help.

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fishin' wrote:

How many building permits have the French issued in N.O. since the levee on the south side of Lake Pontchartrain was completed in 1955?

http://www.frommers.com/images/destinations/maps/jpg/20_greaterneworleans.jpg

Well, Mr. Eye-roll, have a look at this map. D'Iberville's settlement was located where you see the Pontchartrain causeway. De Bienville's settlement was located where you see the rubric "French Quarter." Metairie and the Faubourg Marigny were both established during Spanish rule before the Louisiana purchase. Spreading out to the east and west was the only alternative--but the worst flooding has been in regions settled well before 1955. Do you consider it reasonable to expect that either the powers that were in the city or the state were gonna tell people "It's just not safe, we're gonna demolish your houses and make you all move to higher ground?" According to the New York Times map published today, the levee was first breached at the 17th Street canal--and the NYT map shows flooding throughout the areas which were settled and built-up city before 1900. Your comments remain silly.

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there's no excuse for leaving 15,000 people stranded without the basics for almost 3 days. if it's as dangerous as they say it is to get to the convention center they could very easily drop enough food and water from the air.

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By the way, the evidence after the breach is that the levees constructed between 1920 and the 1950s were extremely shoddy, with "aggregate" composed of building detritus and rubble used in the foundations, rather than the fill material specified in Corps of Engineer recommendations.

As Farmerman noted in another thread:

Quote:

All the rubble cores of the levees on the lake are now being discovered. Some of these rebuilt levees dont go back any farther than the :Moon Landreau" years. It turns out that the cores of the lake levees arent selected granular materials, they were crap and rubble (oprobably left over from Camille)

Keep in mind that FM makes his living as a geologist in the field, and knows whereof he speaks. There's lots of blame to go around, and i don't think that will end any time this side of next year.

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A case of too little, too late.

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mikey wrote:

there's no excuse for leaving 15,000 people stranded without the basics for almost 3 days. if it's as dangerous as they say it is to get to the convention center they could very easily drop enough food and water from the air.

At the moment, this is my biggest beef of all!

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I agree with Mikey except for the fact that even more rioting and dangerous situations could be the result of air drops.

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Setanta wrote:

Well, Mr. Eye-roll, have a look at this map. D'Iberville's settlement was located where you see the Pontchartrain causeway. De Bienville's settlement was located where you see the rubric "French Quarter." Metairie and the Faubourg Marigny were both established during Spanish rule before the Louisiana purchase. Spreading out to the east and west was the only alternative--but the worst flooding has been in regions settled well before 1955. Do you consider it reasonable to expect that either the powers that were in the city or the state were gonna tell people "It's just not safe, we're gonna demolish your houses and make you all move to higher ground?"

I consider it entirely reaonable to tell the people that arrived in the N.O. Metro area since 1955 that they aren't allowed to build below sea level. Or are you going to claim that the French built every current structure in N.O. back in the 1700s now?? Got a map for that one too?

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http://maps.unomaha.edu/Maher/linked/week9/deltas.jpg

Look at this map. You will see to the west (left) the Atchafalaya River. That was the bed of the Mississippi River until a gigantic log jam formed from a catastrophic dead-fall, it is believed in the sixteenth century. The Mississippi diverted into its present channel then, and this was how the French found it. The Atchafalya is referred to by geological hydrologists as "the Old River." The Old River Control Structure was built there to prevent the Mississippi from returning to its ancient river bed, which would have left Baton Rouge and New Orleans high and dry, and ruined their river and sea ports. Given that the Corps of Engineers has worked so hard to keep the Mississippi where it is, and not where it "wants" to go, it is more than a little naive to suggest that anyone other than everyone in a position of responsibility in the history of Louisiana is responsible for this situation. It could be solved in a day, just by blowing up the Old River Control Structure. The Mississippi could strike out to the south, the present river bed would turn into a bayou, Lake Pontchartrain would begin to shrink, and everybody could be assured that New Orleans would not again be subjected to this type of catastrophic flooding . . .

Rolling Eyes

. . . that one's for you, Fishin'

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I don't see any buildings on that map! Where are all the little French buildings???

Quote:

The Old River Control Structure was built there to prevent the Mississippi from returning to its ancient river bed, which would have left Baton Rouge and New Orleans high and dry, and ruined their river and sea ports.

And when was that old river control structure built again?? Oh yeah, that would be the 1950s again...

I could blame everyone in the history of LA for being responsible but I'll elect to blame those that had a wealth of knowledge at their disposal, debated about when this day would come and then did nothing but continue to let the people that are currently standing waist deep in water continue to build there anyway.

You are free to call that naive if you choose to yet all of the planning and protections built to stop this exact sort of situation go back to the work of the Corps of Engineers in the 1950s and the local government in LA (along with the Corps of Eng) sticking their heads in the sand and hoping that what they knew would someday come, somehow magically wouldn't.

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What about the folks who actually built the structures?

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fishin' wrote:

You are free to call that naive if you choose to yet all of the planning and protections built to stop this exact sort of situation go back to the work of the Corps of Engineers in the 1950s and the local government in LA (along with the Corps of Eng) sticking their heads in the sand and hoping that what they knew would someday come, somehow magically wouldn't.

I call that naïve because throughout the Mississippi basin, local, state and Federal officials are committed to an effort to preserve human structures and farm land in situ, and not to an effort to move people, towns, farms and riverine port facilities to more reasonable locations. And that is not to be wondered at, given the enormous cost of such an effort, and the virtual political suicide it would amount to for those taking such a decision. The only culprits i see are the sh*ts who built substandard levees for the venal end of increasing their personal gain, and those who ought to have been assuring they didn't do that.

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Setanta wrote:

The Old River Control Structure was built there to prevent the Mississippi from returning to its ancient river bed, which would have left Baton Rouge and New Orleans high and dry, and ruined their river and sea ports.

For a history and discussion of this see John McPhee's "The Control of Nature" 1989.

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